And now for something completely differentFollow

And all this time i thought Virus was a guy.

Only a woman could make such an inane comment about football.

I have a soft spot for Holland anyway, so it might skew my judgement. But I do think they're playing better and better as the tournament goes on. Robben is getting close to full fitness, and he's the kind of player that can win a game single handedly, especially one as close as the semis. Their defense is weak, Van Bronckhorst is a bit of a joke, but their midfield and attack are world-class. Their bench is pretty good too.

Brazil could have gone further, but I think Dunga got it wrong. Playing with two defensive midfielder, when you're Brazil, is far too conservative. Even against NK they had 2 parked in front of their defence. I know the full backs attack a lot, but still, they only really had 3 purely offensive players. And Kaka was the Real Madrid Kaka, not the AC Milan one.

I don't think it's that much of a loss. Argentina, for one, have been far more exciting on so many levels. In case you missed it, here's Maradona a couple of days ago denying he's gay, and here he is smoking a cigar during a training session. Awesome or what...

I miss Goalkeeper.

Football, yet another topic you don't know the first thing about.

I have more issues with van der Wiel personally, he seems to get overrun even versus the relatively weak teams.

That said, Brazil was much much stronger the first 55 minutes.
As soon as it became 1 - 1 Brazil was suddenly just gone, completely.
NL survived the first half on luck and won after Brazil had a complete nervous breakdown.

I wouldn't blame the Brazilian team crumbling on Dutch luck, the first goal was pure luck and a blunder of epic proportions by the Brazilian goalie, but after that Brazil was just gone.

That said, this is a very good opportunity to get into the finals for the first time since 1978.

Sadly I'll miss most of if not all of today's matches, so I won't get to see Germany vs Argentine, and I'm curious who will end up in the finals from that side. Germany, Argentine or Spain.

I'm sure the Uruguayans are really pissed right now about the Dutch goal that the commentators were calling as possibly being offsides. That said, after the first five minutes or so, the Dutch were running circles around Uruguay and probably should've won by much more.

The first Dutch goal was simply amazing. Just fantastic.

HOLLAND! HOLLAND! HOLLAND!




The 3 - 2 was entertaining because I was setting next to a guy who bet on 1-1 at half time 3-1 win for Holland at full time.
He looked really sad when he realized that he didn't win the money after all.

Just be glad you didn't have to watch the Italians for more than three games. I think those guys carry stage blood capsules in their boots. Not to mention all the make-up those guys wear.

Edited, Jul 6th 2010 4:55pm by baelnic

Eh, they were pretty bad, but some of the quarterfinal matches were much worse. At least the Dutch had a quite legitimate complaint when their man got kicked in the face.

Yeah, but they should have been sent off for pushing the guy who did it to the ground and stamping on him; the bicycle kick was unintentional and going for the ball, deliberate stamping off the ball is always a red card offence.

Also, Italy doesn't dive any more than most teams.

While my head said Germany, my heart said España. Once again in this world cup, form and track record meant nothing.

Spain were the better side and deserved their win.

As I've said before, I miss goalkeeper.